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Friday, 30 January 2015

Chips is a baddass in Greasy Poon and quickly sided with the Boss - Bangers & Smash. It wasn't long until others seeing the odds stacked against them joined. This offers the township a decent amount of security which in turn attracts those who have less combat ability and aggression.

Chips doesn't carry a ranged weapon as he prefers close combat. He wears home made armour and uses an reenforced old truck door as a shield.

Chips is a Stavley resin figure for the Nuclear Renaissance game by Ramshackle Games. The figure comes in three pieces. The body, axe hand and shield. There is also a sculpted integral resin base cast to the figure which saves basing.

I quite like this figure and I suspect I may order another in the future when I re-enforce King Artie's Scrap Knights. This mini would fit the look of that war band nicely.

Gravy and Egg like close combat. Gravy got his name from his habit of looting the graves. Egg earned his name from his battle chant "I am gonna split your head like a mute egg!"

Pie & Cheesy offer some ranged firepower with old assault rifles. Pie gained his name for food stuffs covered in pastry & baked (and some times deep fat fried after that). His love of pies is so deep he has been known to kill for a pie. Other denizens of Greasy Poon are amazed he isn't much larger. He puts it down to his mutie metabolism. Cheesy gained his name from his deep pungent cheese like aroma which keeps many locals upwind of him most of the time.

The last member of the gang is Sausage. He gained his name from his battle cry "How do like them Sausages!".

The members of the Chips gang are GW 40K Chaos cultists. They are nice looking figures and I enjoyed painting them. Whilst they are plastic multipart figures they are made in such a way that they can be assembled in one way. This seriously limits the scope that these figures could have. Nice one GW. Another shot in the foot.

The Chips gang are all named after fast food items that go with Chips (Note they are also known Fries in some parts of the Wastelands). I tried to get the gangers in colours that relate to their names. There will be future additions to this gang - all with names which relate to dishes & food served with chips. Sadly there will not be a Curry as he is one of Bangers' monkey brothers/henchmonkeys.

Welcome back to my little spot in the Wastelands. One of the projects over the last few weeks has been painting up some resin figures. The figures in question are Drug Crazed Loonatics and can be found on the Ramshackle Games website.

The figures are one part castings and have an integral base. It is standard Nuclear Renaissance rubble which saves time basing. These Loonatics are for the Psych Ward gang to be found in my modern After the End Post Apocalyptic setting. However they look that they would fit in nicely into my Matt Black God's world setting. They make nice cannon fodder for some Warlord or Evil psycho. Actually the two terms are mutually exclusive on MBG world. Thanks for looking.

Sunday, 18 January 2015

Look down at the world. The world of the mattblackgod. A world surrounded by mines and weapons platforms. A world that maimed itself and was nuked from orbit to stop its plagues from spreading off world. A world left to die. A world that didn't die completely. Life struggles on even in the harshest conditions. Look down at the lights, at the Mega City of Utopia. A city that survived the wars and the nukes with laser weapons and force generators. Here is a shining gem of technology on the world. It is hoped that they can save there dying world. Moving towards the sun rise away from Utopia we are crossing hundreds of miles of barren wastelands of Rosstralia. Not much survives here. Then we pass the occasional settlement or mutated critters. In some places wasteland warlords fight over resources. After thousands of miles we eventually reach some low hills. In those hills lies a fairly prosperous settlement called Greasy Poon. Looking out to the sun rise lies swamp lands and jungles which are highly toxic. Those lands where at the bottom of the sea and are known as the blight. After thousands of miles of these diseased lands you will reach the Ash Wastes on the Tri Continent. Lets return to the township of Greasy Poon. These lands are highly toxic and there are few in these parts who do not have some sort of mutation. Greasy Poon lies in what was some sort of amusement park and is set up in what was the park's food courts which is how it got it's name. The township is ruled over by Bangers and Smash. They work as a unit and are pretty mean.

Smash is the big guy and Bangers is a the brains of the operation. Bangers got his name from his love of shooting things. Smash likes to smash stuff. They make a pretty effective combat unit. Smash can throw rusting hulks of old cars like they are a bar stool. Smash is a mutant from Thunderchild Miniatures and Bangers is a monkey from Ramshackle miniatures. This figure was a mis cast Curtis slipped in. All that was missing was the gun. A GW Space Marine Pistol was grafted on.

This guy was inspired by a certain pair in a certain Post Apoc movie, I am sure you will know. I added a papoose from putty to hold Bangers. Some armour was added to stop the brains of the operation getting popped off.

A close up of Bangers.

A size comparison of Smash. This figure is about 60mm tall!Now no Warlord stays top of the food chain without a couple of sidekicks to keep them informed. Bangers and Smash uses a couple of Bangers' brothers - Curry & Rice.

Curry & Rice hang around the township picking up information that they think their Brother will need to know. Of course if trouble arrives Curry & Rice have Bangers back.

The Space Dwarves of Govannon needed some extra firepower as their worlds lie deep within GELF (Genetically Engineered Life Form) which is perilous space. So I added a Mantic Forge Fathers Ancestor to their forces. This may also be handy for the Squats living on Mattblackgod's world.

The resin kit is easy to assemble. It consists of five parts and the body is a single piece of resin. Rather than the usual bold colors these types of figures are painted I decided to go with a camouflage scheme. This figure may also see some action as a Mech for my 15mm figures.

Monday, 5 January 2015

Welcome back to my Blog and I would like to say to you all Happy (belated) Year. Once again the Sprue Cutters Union (SCU) is back. For those of you who don't know what the SCU is about, it's a group of model and wargames bloggers who write a monthly blog post on a certain topic. They put up links to other SCU members topic posts in a effort to share knowledge, ideas and blog traffic. More details can be found on the Sprue Cutters Union Page

So what is this month's SCU topic?"SCU Topic: Old Dog, New Tricks

The market is saturated with products that modelers would not have dreamed of just decades ago. We can count on high quality kits of much desired subjects in a plethora of scales and there are countless options of paints, washes, and decals to finish them. Never the less, we get pretty comfortable in our ways, sticking to the tried and true techniques and familiar products we've handled for years. But its a new year, so.....

What New Products/Techniques Will You Purchase/Attempt This Year?"

After a great deal of thought (can you smell the burning?) I have some ideas. My forte has always been 28mm (1/56 to 1/50 ish - wargames scales tend to drift between manufactures and even product lines!) Post Apocalyptic and Science Fiction Wargaming and model making. In the recent past I have diversified into 15mm (1/100 to 1/110 ish scale) SF model making & wargaming. I learnt a great deal from the transition and I like to think that my 28mm figure painting skills have sharpened as a result. I would like to attempt the following in the coming year.

1. Textured Basing Paint.

A good base can make for brake a well painted miniature or model. I have always found my own basing materials. I can be quite frugal at times and I believe that making your own teaches you new skills. However in this the "Golden Age" of figure collecting and painting there are some new products out there. Special textured basing paints. I have invested in some by Games Workshop/Citadel and Vallejo. I will be trying these in the coming months and hopefully reporting my findings as I go along.

2. 1/24 Scale Post Apocalyptic Vehicles.

I have mastered Post Apoc vehicles in 28mm (well I think I have ha ha). However the 1/24 scale work of Barry Harker's Post Apoc vehicles left my jaw on the floor. Unlike my 28mm stuff these will be purely display models and wont see game table action.

3. Air Brushing

I hope to save my pennies and pick up a air brush mainly for Terrain and Vehicles. It has been a long standing wish to use a airbrush. If my skills improve to a point that I am happy I may even attempt some figure painting with it too. Of course I may be tapping other bloggers and hobbyists who use air brushes for advice on masking, cleaning and so on.

4. Play some new rulesets.

I have a few new rulesets but I seem to default to the same old offenders as time is usually short. The old veteran ruleset Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader for my 15mm SF games using cm instead of inches. GASLIGHT for 28mm Victorian Sci Fi, Neutron York 3000 for 28mm Post Apoc and Skank for quick games where I do not have the time for paperwork. In the last 12 months I have acquired several games I have not yet tried. Dreadball for SF sports, Scavenge Skirmish Survive and Across the Dead Earth for Post Apoc. On the SF front there is No Stars in Sight and Hammer's Slammers. There is plenty for me to try when I decide to dip my toe in.

5. Write my own ruleset.

One of the things you soon learn when you War Game is that some rule sets you gel with and others you don't. One universal rule is that some rulesets will not handle everything you want to do. Some will not have vehicle rules, others may not handle mutants or beasties and so on.Some rulesets may even use the wrong dice, for instance I like 10 sided dice (D10) rather than the more common 6 sided dice (D6).

In the past I have often gotten around this by writing new rules for the rulesets to bridge these gaps. I have even had add on rules published over on the Combat Zone Chronicles site for the Combat Zone game.

In time it occurred to me that maybe I should write my own ruleset that suits my game style preferences and will cover everything I want it to. So that is a aim.

So that's my new skills list. Lets see how 2015 goes.

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